What's more efficient html

To much on such a small scale they are similar thing, except the bottom option is bigger, but instead of using the spacer gif use the non breaking sace tag thingy  
Netscape doesnt like empty cells, but using the above is ok.
nesting tables is sometimes easier and faster, the browser read you tables code then displays it, having one really big table can take longer then say one or two smaler tables, IE gives the impression its loading faster (and sometimes does), kinda like a anitalised gif loading, takes the same time but you see it loading so appears faster.

I think it was Netscape that gave us tables

Not a big difference when you are using only a couple of nested tables. Lot of sites have loading problems in netscape because they create one main table at the very top of the page and then have several tables within. That is the problem. If you have several tables and nested tables within then the best way is to have a series of tables. Because in netscape (I don't know about version 6+) tables are loaded one by one and when you have a series they are loaded one by one and you can see them loading - otherwise, you have to wait till the main big table of the page is fully loaded before you see anything.

e.g.:

content
content
content

content
content

Here is my short version... Table contents are not displayed untill the browser heres "" for the outmost table.

No real preference on the code, just a note to remind you that Netscape doesn't always render bgcolor properly in nested tables. If you nest, you'll need to add a background image of the color to the tds to have the color render properly.

Hi,

when in doubt, time it:

<script language='javascript'>
var start = new Date().getTime();
</script>
...body contents...
...tables, images, etc...
<script language='javascript'>
var end = new Date().getTime();
alert(start + '\n' + end + '\n' + (end - start))
</script>

Vinny